


Darcy Saves the Day

by Girl_chama



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: 5 and 1, Action, BAMF, Common Sense, F/M, Five And One, Flirting, Gen, Romance, Sneaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Girl_chama/pseuds/Girl_chama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Darcy saved the day, and one time her day was saved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darcy Saves the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted at NorseKink. Now de-anoned and properly edited for clarity and general professionalism. 
> 
> OP here http://norsekink.livejournal.com/7418.html?thread=15437562
> 
> New readers, please enjoy :)

**One.**  
She was getting good at thinking on the fly.  Part of her, when given to reflection, liked to think that she had _always_ been good at a quick response.  But response was a learned skill, different from reaction, and she realized upon even deeper recollection, that she had _learned_ to respond.  Reactions, yes.  Down like Chinatown.  Or whatever.  Responses?  Well, she was getting better.

These days, her actions were different from that fateful night in New Mexico.  Thor, removed of his deity, had been an easy target for a twitchy young woman with a stun gun.  Though she still loved her stun gun, it was not something she always carried, moving on to other methods of protection as well.  The Stark Rape Whistle had worked really well, a first edition gift from Jane upon learning she was moving to Manhattan.  After rupturing her victim’s eardrums (turnabout was fair play, after all,) she had returned to more mundane, bloodless methods of repulsion.  Mace.  Brass knuckles.  The usual.

“ _And did I bring a single damn thing in this clutch?_ ” she thought murderously.  “ _Hell no_.”  Tampons, keys, and a mini-flask had taken up all of the available space.  Not to mention she had not thought she would actually _need_ any of her normal self-defense accoutrement with a full freaking set of Avengers attending tonight’s soiree.  Seriously. 

But then all six had to go and get- uh, neutralized- pretty early on, which was disappointing on many levels.  Even after the three days she had spent visiting Jane, during which she had been assured that they were normal people.  As normal as they could be.  For, ya know…  Them.

Dr. Banner had been sedated in a behind-the-back surprise before he even saw it coming.  Thor had caved quickly, since Jane had been corralled in the first round of hostages.  Tony Stark, too, because Pepper Potts had been _the_ first hostage.  Apparently even she had been conquerable in five-inch heels.  Agent Romanov was pacing like a caged panther, both she and Agent Barton biding time while the perps listed their demands to Steve Rogers, clueless as to who he was despite his taking charge of the situation.  So even those three were willing to concede to hostage-takers.   Good to know.

The silent self-flagellation continued as she finished crawling into the dark closet, closing it as quietly as she could manage.  She allowed herself a few deep breaths before kicking off her own four-inchers and climbing to her feet.  The dress ripped at the thigh as she did so, and she stilled, partly in annoyance but mostly in fear.  A few seconds later when no one had come to investigate, she reassured herself and turned to her goal.

It had been the door she spotted on her first trip to the ladies’.  Group mentality was alive and well in the New York elite (moreso, perhaps?) because there had been a long-assed line and none of them had thought to look for another relief station.  _She_ had found one two floors down from the main gala, mostly with the serving staff, a few of whom had been undercover agents from whatever group the Avengers were fighting these days.  Honestly, it was hard enough to keep up with what her friends were doing, never mind her friend’s bosses/teammates.  But in passing she had seen the maintenance closet. 

Memory, and gloriously dumb luck, had gotten her back to it.  It was the only explanation for how the place had been completely unguarded. Efficient, and ruthless, though they were, they had not covered all their bases.

Lo… success! 

She started toward the breaker boxes and tried not to think about the weapon at Jane’s throat or the pitifully blank smile on Dr. Banner’s face when he had gone down.  She lifted her hand up to the main power lever, yellow and black electrical warnings plastered over the box face.

They only needed a few seconds, right?  Wasn’t how these things worked?  They only needed just a second of surprise and they could do- whatever magic it was they worked to normally save the day

“Shit, shit, shit…” she muttered, trying not to think about how easy it would be for an anxious hand to slip against Jane’s throat.   SHIELD was faster.   _Thor_ was faster.

“Shit!” she squeaked, and threw two switches in quick succession.

The closet plunged into darkness.

She waited.  And waited. 

The silence only deepened, broken by her heavy breathing.  It was a force of will to control it as her heart continued to race.  She had not felt this alive since New Mexico and the giant death metal on two feet.  Wait, death metal was music.  Shit.

The door opened swiftly inward and Darcy did not even scream as she swung the shoe in her hand, heel first.  It was caught, and then she did scream, out screaming the shouts on the other side of the door.  But no one was touching her, or hurting her, or killing her, and finally they even dropped their flashlights to the floor before pushing past her.  Still not touching.

The newcomer returned the breakers to upright position as Darcy caught her breath, heaving.  Never had NYPD looked so good.  She nearly sank as Agent Barton appeared behind them.  He took one look at the closet, the breakers, and her state of post-panic, and she determined that she would savor the gratifying look of surprise on his face.  Later.

“You?” he asked.

“Me,” she said, and then with as much dignity as she could muster, returned her feet to her heels and allowed herself to be escorted from the room.The damage was not as bad as she had thought it might be.  

Police were up and about, escorting the less-than-well-to-do, given the circumstances, from the room.  Steve Rogers was directing them.  The main core of the Avengers were still present, Tony Stark and Pepper off to the side talking in jaunty tones, for all that she had just been at death’s door.  Probably.  Dr. Banner was still unconscious.  Thor and Jane were wrapped up in one another, and Agent Barton was currently wrapping a blanket around her own shoulders.  She gave him a small smile that did not reach her eyes, a gesture that flattened completely as Agent Romanov approached them with a hard expression.

“She’s the one?” the woman asked, not looking at Darcy at all.

“Cut the power, and seemed to be guarding the door, too,” Barton answered from behind her. 

Guarding?  Did he mean her last act of crazy with the shoe?  She frowned, and opened her mouth to correct him when Romanov cut her off with a sharp, “Good work,” and then disappeared to help Rogers.

Jane had a small scratch on her throat, Darcy saw as her friend nearly bowled her over, small frame and all emotions.  Her attacker’s skull was completely caved in.  Thor’s hand, itself, must have done the deed.  Darcy had seen Mjolnir in action.  The hammer would have left nothing of a head at all.

Looking away from the gore, she wrapped her arms around Jane as Barton and Thor conferred together quietly a few steps away.  Then the thunder god approached and wrapped his arms around both women.

“Well done, Darcy,” he congratulated warmly.

She nodded, pulling away from both of them to smile.

“Yeah, you know me.  I have a way with electricity.”  Thor laughed.  Jane laughed.

Darcy laughed, caught her breath, and then vomited all of the evening’s libations and hors d’oeuvres.

 

 

 **Two.  
** Darcy took a deep breath as the gunmen made their way through the paltry bar.  They had already cleaned out the cash register and were making the rounds of customers.  Why, oh why, did this keep happening to them?

“Why does this keep happening to us?” Jane echoed frantically, doing a good job of keeping calm, nonetheless.

“I bet Naru asked Usagi the same thing in the first season.”

“ _What_?”

“Nothing.”

“Jokes.  Seriously?”

Yeah, she was joking.  She was nervous as hell.  It was one thing to be skirting along the edges of whatever dastardly plan Hydra or Intelligencia, or whoever was their Villain du jour might concoct.  It was quite another to be at the business end of a sawed off shotgun on Thursday night Mug Night.  Thor was gonna be _so_ pissed they had sullied his name day.

There were three of them.  The first was holding the collection the actual robbing.  The second was right behind the first, holding all of the contributors at gunpoint.  The third was guarding the previously robbed victims, who were being corralled off to one side of the bar after making their donations.  What a simple, dumb-assed operation.

Five minutes.  If the robbing dudes had waited five more minutes they would have been fine.  Thor had gone to retrieve the van, ever proud of his progress with driving, and had taken the visiting Warriors Three to show them the charms of navigating a parking garage.  The concrete stables and all that.  He was going to text them in his ALL CAPS style when the car was ready.  Five minutes and they could have avoided all of this.  Granted, a lot of people would have been robbed with apparently no hope of reparation.  Or worse.

“Remember that fight you told me about that one time?” Darcy whispered carefully as she prepared her purse to be raided.

“What?” Jane hissed, eyeing the approaching robber.

“That fight you had with Keith?  When he said he needed space.”

“Darcy, _no_.”

“So you do remember,” she said, tamping down on the grin that popped onto her face.

“I am not-“

“Shut up, bitch,” the collector snapped as he approached them.  Both fell quiet and Darcy dutifully opened her bag.  He took her wallet, her billfold, her- her iPod!  That one was a low blow.  Then he removed the last object worth any value at all.

“The hell is this?” he asked.

“That’s my new Stark phone.”

“Dude, that shit’s not on the market for another three months,” Shotgun guy spoke.  Really?  Now CNet nerds were robbing the common folk instead of leaving it to the washed out jocks.  Seriously, would no one stop throwing her world out of whack?

“Show me how this works,” Douche-bag (ha) guy said boldly since there were no visible buttons or markers on the tech.  The second pushed the shotgun barrel ever so much closer.  Darcy did not have to fake a wince as she slid her finger across the invisible sweet spot on the case.  Its screen lit up with command options.  She angled her hand just so.

A spray of water came from Jane’s glass from earlier, just as it had years before when Keith had wanted space, on their first anniversary.  The pair was doused, and Darcy triggered the machine before anyone could act surprised.

After the State Police Banquet from a few weeks earlier, Darcy had decided to extend her stay in the city.  Being near Jane, someone who understood the actual crazy of New Mexico, was its own brand of awesome, but she had also grabbed the attention of some VIPs, who had encouraged her to consider sticking around.  Tony Stark had been among them, impressed with her quick thinking, her ability to make Phil Coulson twitch, and the fact that she had “fearlessly” tossed chunks all over Clint Barton’s shoes.  The very next day he had given her an upgrade over a lunch that had been, in a word, ballin’.

It had only taken five minutes, Tony’s ambiguous ethics, and a waterboy who had been, even post-shocking, a huge fan of Iron Man, to test the device. 

Stark Phone.  Riiiiight.

The voltage zapped both of the attackers at once, water conducting the electricity even better than normal. They fell before they could even scream, hitting the ground with a thud.  The third glanced over his shoulder at the commotion, and the looted victims, some severely disgruntled, took advantage of the distraction.

“And that’s what you get for terrorizing New Yorkers,” Darcy said factually.  She winced as the third man hit the ground with a crunch.  Jane made quick work of grabbing the shot gun from the unconscious duo and grabbed up the bag, tossing it to an approaching member of their Victims-Aren’t-Us Club.

“Jane, Darcy, wherefore do you not-“  Thor’s voice caught them both off guard.  They turned and saw him waiting in the doorway, understanding dawning on his confused face, followed quickly by anger.  Behind him Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg looked on with expressions of mixed appreciation and concern.

Jane handed off the shotgun, though Darcy thought Thor might have appreciated a boomstick.  Not exactly a magic hammer, but it could do magic all its own.

“Well played!” Volstagg bellowed from the back.

“So, should we wait for the police?” Darcy asked, repocketing her beastly stun gun- two-at-once stunning, solar charging, no-cartridge-propulsion needed Stark Tech stun gun.  Hell yeah.

“Nah, I think they’ve got it,” Jane called as she looped her arm through Thor’s and stepped outside.

Darcy shrugged, looped her arms through Hogun’s and Fandral’s, to the surprise of them both, and shuffled out after.

 

 **Three.  
** “Oh, hold that!” Darcy cried as she surged forward, completely confident that she would not fall in only a kitten heel.  The man entering obliged, and even took a few steps backward out of her way, to hold the door for her.  She grinned, and then did a double-take at the sight of Agent Barton.  The grin faltered as she offered her muted thanks.

“What was that?” he asked, inclining his ear obnoxiously. 

She grimaced, but instead of thanking him again, said instead, “Sorry… About a few weeks ago.”

His expression softened, but he was still smiling.  Then, as if sensing her distress he shrugged.  “No worries, all right?  I’m just impressed that you kept your cool during the worst of it.  Everyone deserves a little bit of throw up every now and then.”

“Deserves a little bit of throw up, huh…”

“You- uh- you know what I mean,” he said, even as his eyes cut away from hers.  She _did_ know, and she grinned as she took a few more steps backwards.  He coughed.  “Going out?” He gave her the once over rather indiscreetly and she stopped walking, stood a little taller.

“Yeah, it’s the one year anniversary since we ran over Thor in the desert,” she said with a grin, glad that she could share what the hell was special about that without being carted off to a crazy home, or worse.  She left out the part about stunning him.  Somehow men tended to get freaked out when she mentioned it.  Men who were not Tony Stark. Or Thor, himself, who still laughed about it more than anyone else.

“Oh yeah, Puente Antiguo,” he said with a nod.  “I remember.”

“You… were there?” she asked.  She could not remember seeing him amongst the Coulson clique.  At his nod, she grinned.  “No way!  You should totes come with!  The more the merrier.”

“Nah, that’s OK,” he said with a shrug.  “I _totes_ have the night off.  For once.  I think I’m going to do some target practice and hit the hay.”

Darcy shrugged as she hailed a cab.  “Your loss.”

Aquavit was a nice restaurant.  Nicer than she could normally afford on her salary, but Jane was buying and Erik was contributing, and Thor was thrilled with the Northern European fare.  It was the closest there was to Asgardian food on the planet, apparently.  Definitely on this side of the Atlantic.

The restaurant was quietly, sleekly designed with wooden floors and tables and chairs.  There were even wooden chandeliers held with great ropes, housing thick candles with carefully set drip trays.  The place smelled a little like fish and herbs, and that was OK by Darcy who spent most of her childhood days eating red meat and was now in one of the most gastrically diverse cities on the planet.  Damn if she wasn’t going to be a little adventurous about it.

“Fish is adventurous?” Erik teased.

“About as adventurous as chugging Boilermakers with someone half your age and half again your body weight.”

“I don’t remember that,” he said quickly, face reddening.

“Yeah, back in my day we called that black out.”

They were halfway through the second course, Jane explaining the concept of black out to Thor with specific examples from her own history (which Darcy and Erik found as fascinating as Thor, though for different reasons), when the shouting in the kitchen sounded.  It was stilted at first.  The group exchanged tense glances as Darcy grabbed for another piece of bread and her butter knife.  The second wave came as screaming and there was a loud CRASH!- Darcy jumped- of breaking dishes.

Every head in the restaurant turned toward the hidden door of the galley just in time for a rather displeased (under?  meet statement) chef to come barging through the doors.  She paused, her breath heaving, sweat on her brow, and seemed to see the nervous patrons not at all.  In her hand there was a great cleaver, suspicious looking bits of flesh still clinging to its edge.  Darcy told herself it was just fish, or pig fat.  Something not related to any of the servers in the kitchen who had yet to follow the woman out.

“Not even the supernatural type,” Darcy muttered around the bread in her mouth.  It was practically dissolving.  Soo good.  Erik shot her a look, more concerned than disapproving, and she quieted.  At least this was better than the last two times.  Jane was not in the direct line of fire, and, hopefully, no one had been victimized too badly in the kitchen.  Certainly not in the dining room yet.

Thor turned in his high-backed chair slowly and made to stand, but for the steady hand Jane placed on his wrist.  Darcy noticed the incredulity in his expression, but at the sight of Jane’s patient face he hesitated.  She could understand where her friend was coming from.  It was one thing for a man with a giant hammer to fly around in a red cape and do damage to superthugs.  People could suspend disbelief and forget his face.  It was another for a tall, blond dude with a rad ponytail to start busting up chefs who happened to be going Gordon Ramsey on the rest of the kitchen.  It would not take long for people to start remembering and put two and two together.

The chef grimaced at Thor’s motion and Darcy the blade shift as she tightened her hold on.  Thor was still watching Jane, nodding to her.

Darcy frowned and swallowed her buttered bread, tightening her own fingers.  Sweaty McFierce toed forward and Darcy’s fingers got twitchy again.  She hefted the butter knife and gave it a wonky toss at Sweaty, who stepped back as it butted against her chest harmlessly.  Her face contorted, all rage and purpose, and Darcy winced, flicking her other hand, and effectively loosing the rope next to her head.

It was all over when the chandelier crashed down on the chef, before she reached their table and before Thor reached her, his arm still half-lifted to strike.   He paused for just a second before glancing back to Darcy, who shrugged sympathetically.  Erik sighed and signaled for a round of shots.  Jane sighed and signaled for the check.

Later, when they were going over the details of the event, Darcy explained, “I just didn’t want people to be able to recognize Thor, you know?  Protecting his anonymity and all that.”

Jane nodded, “I just didn’t want him to out and out kill anyone.”

“Oh yeah, that, too.  Totally.”

 

 

 **Four.**  
“Haha, that’s gotta be the oldest trick in the book,” Clint laughed from across the room at Darcy’s retelling of events from the dinner a few weeks before.  Of course, he had already heard this, even from Darcy, but something about it did not get old to his ears.  It was all very ACME.

Darcy wheezed a response from her flattened spot on the floor as Natasha smirked down at her.

“Didn’t stop the chef from falling for it,” Romanov punned with a smirk.

“I would totally tweet that right now if I could feel my hands,” Darcy coughed.

There was something completely surreal about taking defense lessons from a woman who, with good reason, was known as the Black Widow.  None of that killing her former mates thing, that Darcy knew of but would never ask about in a cajillion years not even for a million dollars and true love.  But she was death on heels.  After their third time out and being attacked in as many functions, Jane had pleaded with SHIELD to help them out somehow.  Darcy, herself, felt solid about it all.  Everything had worked out fine thus far, right?  But Jane was not satisfied, and apparently neither was SHIELD.  Agent Romanov had actually volunteered her assistance, though Darcy was convinced it had something to do with Thor spreading her actions as “heroic exploits,” which was mostly ridiculous, but too awesome to correct.

The assassin pulled her to her feet, and even held her hand as she found her footing.  She was not joking about the lack of feeling in her fingers.  She could not even feel her head.

“Walk it off,” her instructor ordered.

She attempted as much, cursing Jane under her breath for all things social and Thor-related.  Without them, Darcy would not have been in the stupid-crazy situations that had caused her to take a beating from someone who she could never expect to say no to. 

A few minutes later, Natasha waved her off with a, “You’re done,” and after stretching out for a few minutes more, she began to gather her things together for the trip back to her apartment across town.  After the lightheadedness had passed she was feeling all gooey warm and pleasant after her workout.  So when Clint offered to walk her out, she did not think twice about accepting.

The walk was longer than normal.  In part because of the delicious burn in her arms and legs from the defense session.  She had, after all, released a ton of endorphins that were putting her guard down just enough to make walking to the bus terminal instead of her taxi stop seem appropriate.  Clint said nothing about her change of route, obviously extended past the front of the Tower, just smiled at her knowingly.

It was a very interesting experience to have a man hold your gaze without fear or self-consciousness.  And he _was_ a man, far removed from the years of boyhood, but not so hard around the edges to suggest he had never been one.

“So I’ve been thinking,” he said as they turned onto a quieter street.

“Hmm?”  she asked lowly, careful to not upset the delicious feeling seeping into her bones. Damn, but she was gonna be sore tomorrow.  She grinned, anyway.

“I should have taken up your offer for dinner a few weeks ago,” he admitted.

“Did I offer to take you to dinner?”

“You said, ‘You should totes come with!  The more the merrier!’”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t wiggle like that when I said it.”

“I toned it down.”

“Craaaaap,” Darcy interrupted, allowing the wiggling to slide.  He did have nice hips.  And the backside between them.  “Someone actually listening to what I say is probably going to get me in trouble.”  He smiled.  Darcy smiled, too. “It turned out to be a hell of a night, that’s for sure.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, that strawberry dessert plate kicked ass.”

He laughed outright this time, and she grinned at him, feeling for a moment like the only person in the world under his gaze.  Yep, intense.

“As it turns out, target practice for one can get a little boring, too,” he admitted.

“I bet that depends on the target.”

They both stopped, her smile softening, his faltering.  His focus was really on her, eyes and senses, and for a moment she wondered if she had done something wrong.  His hand moved, as if he might to touch her, and she had already made up her mind that she would allow it.  Then he paused as his eyes shifted past her head, and Darcy, too, froze.

“Don’t,” a calm voice spoke from behind Clint’s back, the voice of the body that had stolen her attention from her escort.  She could see in the shadows that someone had emerged from an alleyway opposite them (why did people always have to spoil the small things?) and yep, there was a gun.  It would have been tragically cliché except for the fact that it was Darcy’s first time experiencing it and all of her tired was quickly smothered in adrenaline and nerves.  The man continued to approach Clint, who, himself, retained a calming expression on his face, still looking at what she could assume was another body behind her.  

There was something painfully intimate and intrusive about being threatened this way.  In a crowd, it was easier to blend in, to shift the pain into something anonymous and removed.  But here, she knew exactly who the target was and there were plenty of implications as to why she and Clint had been picked out.

The gun was angled against Clint’s scapula. Aside from disapproving being threatened in a very general way, Clint also knew exactly where the gun was and exactly what kind of damage was possible at the range and position.  His focus was incredible, enabling him to think about those things and simultaneously push his own fear aside. Darcy knew none of this.  Clint moved.

Darcy watched with wide eyes for a split second until a hand grabbed her arm from behind and she threw her other arm out wide to counter the sudden pull of her body.  In, towards her attacker, she spun, and her backpack was a momentary buffer between her and Grabby Hands, while her elbow was a sharp obstacle.  She dispatched it with all of the force she could muster, catching her attacker at the short end of her spin. 

Resistance had not been expected, and the hands fell away quickly, accompanied with a drawn out grunt.  She turned and grabbed the shoulders of her hunched assailant, leveraging herself for a swift knee to the groin.

“No mercy!”

Man or woman, that would hurt like a bitch.  She followed through with a fist to the face that was more propelling that punishing, but her attacker fell back, clutching their crotch, and she turned back to see Clint just opposite of her attacker.  They had maneuvered somehow so that the gunman’s back was to her.

She danced on her toes, shuffling back and forth, waiting for just the right moment.  When it came, she did not hesitate, high on adrenaline and invincibility.  He did not take well to being hung on by a very grabby monkey, rather like Fezzik and Westley, but she only tightened her grip, even as he spun, trying to throw her off.  The gun slipped from his grip and skittered across the street.

“Clint!” she wailed, more to vent her fear than really direct him.  He knew what to do.  He would do it if she could just hold on.

An eternity later the gun fired and both she and her bitch went down.  She rolled a few times to put distance between them, but the action was mostly unnecessary.  He was too busy clutching his leg and shouting in pain to try to pursue her.  She climbed to her feet as Clint quickly removed the clip and emptied the chamber.

Darcy sighed and went to retrieve her bag, not sure when she had lost it in the scuffle.  When she turned around, Clint was on the phone with the authorities- the locals it sounded like.  Good for him.  Even SHIELD needed a night off every now and then.  Though, that meant they would have to stick around for a bit longer and answer the questions about what had happened.

She looked at their attackers, the one she had felled completely on her own, and felt… Sad.  She felt sad for them.  Oh, she was glad for being able to take care of herself, and she would need to send Natasha a fruit basket or something in thanks, but… There was no pride or victory in this.  They had not even had time to make their demands, whatever they had been after- money, probably?

“You all right?” Clint’s voice interrupted her thoughts.  The phone was put away.  She nodded.

“You?”

“Yeah,” he said, with a grand exhale of breath. 

She closed the distance between them and did not hesitate to pull him to her.  “You do know I’m OK, right?” he asked and she shushed him carefully, rocking back and forth.  He chuckled and took over before she could try to coddle him further, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.  Adrenaline fled, leaving nerves and a tired that had warped to full exhaustion.

“Shit,” she breathed against him.

“Yeah.”

 

 **Five.**  
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Darcy muttered as she ducked behind the coffee counter in time for the prep station to explode.  Sugar and half and half sprayed her back, and she grimaced at the idea of dry-cleaning expenses.  The local cleaners had been jacking prices up- a freaking racket since villains started appearing so frequently.  Everyone needed something cleaned, and the cleaners were taking advantage.

It was Loki.  Full on Loki, this time.  There were no freaky carnivorous aliens, no metal fire-breathing machines. It was Loki himself, and all of the copies of him, across the battlefield.  Natasha and Dr. Banner were out of the country, researching some something in India.  The Captain was here, as always, always on call.  Thor had made a special trip back from Asgard for the occasion, and Tony Stark was en route.

An arrow to the knee of one of the copies let her know that Clint was nearby, and she felt a well of pride at the thought of him taking down copies left and right.  Another arrow took out an entire cluster of them as it exploded.

This was completely wacked out, though.  They had been making a coffee run- their charitable Wednesday coffee for the SHIELD flunkies, of whom she was now a glorious member, when everything had blown to hell.  She climbed over the counter and carefully avoided the pain au chocolat scattered across the floor.  What a freaking waste.  Seriously!  Not to mention their coffee order had been cold for over an hour.

At the door, she saw The Captain skitter across the ground before flipping back to his feet.  He must have found the real Loki, then.  With a frustrated sigh, she started marching toward them, correcting the glasses on her nose as she began to untuck her shirt.

She had had a theory about Loki going for a while.  Well, a while being since she had officially joined SHIELD and gained access to his files.  He was narcissistic and attention-seeking, Tony had pointed that out weeks ago.  He liked to parade himself around and make sure everyone noticed him.  It was a cry for help if she had ever heard it.

She dodged a flying sewer grate with much more mobility than she had before moving to New York.  At this point it was not even that daunting, given all of the crazy shit she had been through in the past few months.  Granted, this was the first time she had willingly put herself into the line of fire instead of fire coming to her.

Captain threw his shield which was handily dodged, but ricocheted its way back just the same.

“HEY!” Darcy shouted, gaining the attention of the Captain, and therefore Loki, who could not bear to be left out of what was going on.  Truthfully, that was probably the best way to fight him.  Ignore him.  How pathetically childish could you get?  But if it was a cry for attention that he was determined to sound, she would answer him.

“Yeah you!” she shouted, pointing up at Loki, who leaned forward with a hand to his chest as if to say, “I?”

“Darcy, get back!” the star-spangled guy shouted, but she waved him away with a, “Zzzztt!”

“I know you like to come down to Midgard to get your jollies and create a big inconvenience for your brother, who, as I’m sure you’re fully aware, is awesome.  Not to mention seriously cut.”

“Would that I’d always had such a sage harpy to bandy words with,” he said with a martyr-like smile.

“Flatterer.”  She rolled her eyes even as she continued strutting forward, stopping a few meters away from the car he was currently perched on.  “Well, since you’re here to create a show, to get our attention,” and the sounds of all of his clones partying hard gave her a moment of anxiety, but she pressed on, committed, “I guess I thought I’d help out.”

“You?”

“Uh huh.”

And that’s when she pulled her shirt and bra up in a swift move that freed the girls and silenced most of Midtown.  Loki drew back in a truly gratifying moment of pause, and Darcy willed the Captain to do something besides coughing and spluttering some distance away.  She blinked up at the god of mischief, fluttering her eyelashes rather coyly, given what was on display, and a moment later blinked again as the man toppled to his knees.  He face planted rather spectacularly on the street.

“Not bad!” she allowed herself, and lowered her shirt, arranging the cups of her bra as Mjolnir swung back to Thor’s approaching hand.  The thunder god was looking at her with an expression she could not quite decipher, as if from an angle he had not expected.

“Er, well done, Darcy,” he said, and she grinned up at him, tucking her shirt back in.

“Any time!” she assured as he lugged the unconscious Loki onto his back.  The clones had disappeared.  Yaaay.  Steve would not come near her as police began to move in and control clean up and evacuation. 

But it was with a firm hand at her back and a discreet nibble on her ear that Clint said, “I’m pretty sure that was not a deterrent.”

 

 **One.**  
Her feet carried her shakily into the yard where splinters and fragments of so, so many things lay strewn on the ground.  Memories and rubble mixed together into a twisted mirror of what had been.  Some of them she recognized right away.  Most she did not.

The house was completely gone. 

She ran a hand into her scalp, unable to process what she was seeing, the reality of what had happened.  They had thought themselves safe from harm in the scrunched shelter from Lilliput.  It had rattled endlessly, a freight train overhead rocking the world while she had clung to Clint tightly enough to bury herself in him.  That had been terrifying, and for a moment she had accepted that death was inevitable.  There was no way to fight nature, to fight the sheer monstrosity of a tornado bearing down on all of the civilization in its path.

Then the storm had subsided, the warnings had lifted, and voices had been heard.  Now that the threat of death had passed, they saw just what life remained.

The gray foundation of her childhood home was still intact, chalky white and completely free of dust.  It was like a giant hand had swooped down and wiped it clean.

A high bark caught her attention, and her head snapped sharply toward its sound.  It was familiar only in the times she had heard it from the neighbor’s house on visits home in the past few years.  Visits like the ones that begin a few days before, introducing her boyfriend to her parents.  She watched as a small Scottie ran the length of the driveway across the road, leaping through the roots of a downed tree like an innocent obstacle course.

She whirled, feeling her heart drop as she noticed the absence of a similar creature much dearer to her heart.

“Bentley!” she shouted.  She whistled, and clapped her hands.  “Bentley!  Come here, boy!”

She turned again, the corner of the yard more of a marker for her parents’ property than anything that remained, but still she did not see the dog.   He was big, black, and with a reverberating bark that would have carried.

“Bentley!”  she screamed, her voice growing shrill. 

Her face began to crumple, weighed with water and heart sickness, just as Clint called, “I’ve got him!” She turned to follow the sound of his voice to see him restraining the lab by his collar.  He was panting to get free and when Clint let him go, he sprinted forward, tongue lolling out of his mouth as Darcy sank to her knees and embraced him.  She was crying then, and after his initial excitement, Bentley calmed and draped his girth over her lap, leaning bodily against her.

Clint stood, watching the scene for a quiet moment.  When she looked up at his face, his eyes were red-rimmed, and his hands were twitching.  She beckoned him forward, and when he kneeled in front of her, she pulled him forward and clung to him.  The rocking of her shoulders was met by his as he cried with her.

So close, so close to losing everything in a situation there was no way to fight.  She forgot the dog as she wrapped both arms fully around him and Bentley wriggled away, leaving Clint enough room to pull her closer.

“We’re OK,” he assured her, kissing her crown.  She knew.  She knew that they were okay, but everything was right here, right now, all of her feelings that had been rattling around when the house had first started shaking, when the hail had started pelting them even on the way to the shelter.  She could feel the risen bruises on Clint’s shoulders where some of the icy stones had caught him.

“We’re going to rebuild, Darcy.  We’ll make it whole again.”

She believed him.

Some hours later, it was surprising, and not, and wholly welcome, when the rest of the team arrived.  Steve was leading the pack, with Dr. Banner willingly bringing up the rear.  Even Tony was here of his own volition, Pepper at his side, as each of them surveyed the damage.

“Did you call them?” Darcy asked as she squeezed the fingers laced with her own.

“Didn’t have to,” Clint answered as they assembled.

“We gotta take care of our own, kid,” Tony said as he squeezed his assistant’s fingers tightly.  “So, I guess we should have a bake sale or something soon, right?”  The words were flighty, but his face was still, solemn.

“We’re staying as long as we can, Darcy,” Natasha amended.

“We’re going to make this right,” Steve added, and for the second time that day Darcy burst into tears.  So much for maintaining constant professionalism.


End file.
